Breaking the Mold: Dan Powers' Inspiring Shift from Corporate Engineer to Pleasure Engineer

 

[00:00:00] Introducing Sexpert, Dan Powers

 

Leah | SxR Host: ​Oh, today we've got such a treat. We've got Mr. Dan Powers. Danny Boy. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Dan Powers has been practicing as a sex coach for almost two decades, and he has quite a background in a number of different modalities. He brings in so many; Tantra, Surrogate Partner Therapy... now, what the hell is that? You're going to learn all about it in this episode.

Somatic Sex Education, Sexological Body Work, Erotic Blueprint, and Quodoushka, which he touches on a little bit. Very interesting stuff. You're going to love this one. So tune in, turn on, and fall in love with Dan. 

Leah | SxR Host: Fall in love with Danny Boy. 

Announcer: Welcome to the Sex Reimagined podcast, where sex is shame free and pleasure forward.

Announcer: Let's get into the show. 

Leah | SxR Host: Dan Powers. I love you, Dan. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: I love you too. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yay, Dan. We're here with Dan Powers. We're so excited. This is going to be a juicy topic today. I'm excited. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Me too. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yes. So Dan, you have so many skills and talents and training. You've studied everywhere and one of the things that really intrigues me and I think will intrigue the audience is sex surrogacy.

And I would love for you to just define it and let us know, and our audience know, how sex surrogacy works and some of your experience with it.

 

[00:01:33] Surrogate Partner Therapy

 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Perfect. Well, the first thing I'd like to do is clear up the languaging. We don't call it sex surrogacy. There is something called sex surrogacy. And to me that is more somebody who is really just stepping in to have sex with a client for whatever reason. 

We call this surrogate partner therapy. And the difference is we are modeling a relationship, so a partnership with a client. Everything from the very beginning of, hi, my name's Dan. My favorite color is blue.

Now what's your sign? You know, all that kind of crap that we would go through in a relationship. And then everything between until the conscious uncoupling that we do. And so, you know, there's everything that's in there. Now, we're not going out on dates, uh, we're not doing any of that kind of stuff.

But, you know, really modeling the intimacy of relationship and then educating our clients. The movie, the Sessions with Helen Hunt, who was nominated for whatever the award is that they get for movies. 

Leah | SxR Host: The Academy Award? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah. Or Oscars or Grammys or something. 

Leah | SxR Host: So one of those. Golden Globe or, yeah, an Oscar. Oscar and Academy Awards is the same thing. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So, It was a really good movie and there was a lot of misleading information that was a part of it. But It was still a very valuable movie. Like for example, one of the things that she did when she came to her client and kinda set the premise behind the story, there's a guy who developed polio, I think at about the age of 10, Marco O'Brien.

And he's now an adult and he's never been intimate with a person. And as a polio person you can feel but your muscles don't work. And so he would have these female attendants that would be giving him baths and he would get erections and of course he would be shamed and embarrassed by that. But he still had these desires.

And so he went to his father who's played by William Macy. So I had a pretty all-star cast. And yeah, you know, I asked him, I was like, Hey, I would like to be intimate with somebody. I'd like to see what it's like. And when Macy said, well, I think God would be okay with this. I say go for it.

And so he actually does. And he works with a woman named Cheryl Cohen Green. And this is based on a true story. Cheryl Cohen Green was played by Helen Hunt, and in their first session together, they actually have her get naked. And that is not what happens. That's what I would call a sex surrogate or a sacred intimate or something like that.

 

[00:04:15] The Therapist's Role & The Typical Issues Clients Face

 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: In surrogate partner therapy, that's not how it happens at all. Now my first session with the client is with the therapist. It's a triadic model. So we are in the room with the therapist having this initial conversation. And then after that first one, the therapist is not in the room with us, but we do have conversations with her.

It's like marriage and family therapist who is working with a couple. The only difference is we're not going to the therapist at the same time. We have a conversation after my session with the client, I then call up the therapist, have a conversation with her saying, okay, here's what she did, here's what happened. Here's what I think's going on. Here's what I think are next steps. 

And then the therapist talks to the client and says, okay, what's going on? And so that way anything that may come up that my client would have some shame about, or didn't acknowledge, or, you know, there's something going on that she feels safer to talk to the therapist. The therapist can then bring it back to me.

And it works out really valuably that way. 

Leah | SxR Host: I think this is so cool.

 

[00:05:20] The Client

 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah, it's fascinating. And so primarily you're working with singles so that they can overcome patterns in relationships or do you also work with couples as well in this way? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: No, this is purely a single female. In my case, single female that I work with. Now there are female surrogates, there are gay surrogates. I cannot model a relationship with a man. I just, that's not in my bones to be able to do that. And so I work predominantly with women.

My wife worked with men. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Okay you're helping them overcome ways that they have been in relationship in the past so that they can pave a new way forward. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yep. Exactly. 

Leah | SxR Host: But I was kind of under the impression that a lot of these clients are sort of middle-aged and have had very little experience in relationships, if any, is that true?

So could you give us a little kind of demographic of the issues that people are coming to explore with this type of partner? Call it again? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Surrogate Partner Therapy. 

Leah | SxR Host: Surrogate Partner Therapy. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So it's funny, when I initially did my training in 2013 I thought the same thing. I thought it was going to be the 50, 60 year old virgin that had never been with a man. I've had clients anywhere from 32 to 70 at this point in time. And yes they are virgins, they have never been with a man. 

A lot of them have a lot of religious trauma, you know, save it for the one you love. I've had women who have been in relationship but they were saving it because they had to save it for marriage. And finally the guy that they were with said, I can't take this anymore. I gotta move on. And they've had such trauma around it.

So I see a lot of Southern Baptists, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, those kinds of people that have this kind of trauma around sexuality. And they, in some cases, have been in relationships but oftentimes they do something to sabotage the relationship. Which is where I'm so valuable because I'm the perfect sandbox for them to play in.

They can do what it is that they would normally do to kind of push away this relationship as it starts to get intimate and closer. And the therapist is there to kind of say, wait a minute, time out. Do you notice your pattern starting to come up, where you're pushing Dan away? Now, can we address that? And then of course the therapist comes to talk to me and says, Hey, did you notice this?

Or I may have even pointed it out as well. Notice what's going on here and let's figure out how to get through this. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So fascinating. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. can any therapist do this sort of holding and supporting, or do you have to be specifically trained in this type of work in order to be a therapist working with a surrogate and a client?

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: I would say the only real requirement is that the therapist needs to be comfortable talking about sex. And many, many of the marriage and family therapists that I know and have interacted with are not. So sex therapists are usually better to work with. But all of them I can work with them.

I've worked with somatic therapists, I've worked with MFTs, I've worked with sex therapists. And the thing that the therapist needs to understand is that I am not a therapist, so I'm not going to therapize my client. That's the therapist's job. And a lot of therapists, especially the ones that are really uncomfortable with sex and sexual topics, they kind of want to pun it to me and say, okay, you're the expert in this area, you just kind of deal with it. 

And I'm like, no, I'm getting in the weeds of the relationship. I'm getting, you know, the forest with the trees kind of thing. I'm so deep in the forest that oftentimes I don't necessarily see the big picture. And that's where the therapist is really, really valuable to see what's going on.

 

[00:09:36] Falling in Love

 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: One of the big questions that always comes up, I do presentations at universities and the questions always come up, two questions. One is, do you fall in love with your clients? Or, how do you stop from falling in love with the clients? It's like, well, we don't. We fall in love with our clients.

What better way to show our client a true relationship? And these are true relationships. They fall in love with me. I fall in love with them. You know, our conscious uncoupling is, there's oftentimes tears. It is very sad. But the way I look at it is like a parent sending their child off to college.

It's like, I've had you for 18 years. I love you to death, now go out and do something productive with your life. And that's what I want for my clients. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So typically, how long are you with one client? And then also can you be with more than one client at once? So many questions I have.

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So the easy one is which I already just forgot the question. What was the second question? 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: can you have more than one of these at a time? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yes, absolutely. I can have multiple clients and do and so that's not a problem.

They obviously have to be spaced out a little bit. And it depends on where we're at in the process. The length of time is interesting. So the movie talked about six sessions only and that is so far away from, I mean, it was made for holywood. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: That is not enough. Yeah. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: That's so far out of the realm of what we do.

We have two models. We have an intensive model, which is where a client would come to me or I would go to them for potentially two weeks. And I would see them for three hours every day for two weeks. That would be the shortest time period that I would spend with them. 

The people who come to see me on a weekly basis, which I think is more ideal because it gives them an opportunity to integrate the work that we're doing.

The minimum I've had was six months and the most I've had was three years. And so it depends on the client. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Okay. Okay. So it depends. And so you can't really set that up in advance. Like this is going to be a three month journey. You kind of have to feel it out and adjust as you go. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: What we do with all of our clients is say, what is left to learn?

We have a very structured process that we go through that walks us through all the steps of the relationship and connection. There's obviously education pieces that go into it. I tell my clients all the time that they are going to be so much more knowledgeable about their bodies, their partner's bodies, sex in general, than their clients are ever going to be.

You know, there may be some rare exceptions, but really they are going to have much more information because I'm teaching them and educating them the entire time. Uh, so it's an amazing process for sure. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. So you mean more than their partners, their future partners are ever going to have because you're giving them so much education.

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. That's amazing. 

So, you know, when like you're falling in love with someone and you're talking on the phone all the time and you're texting and all the ohh la la's, are you going through that process too? Do you find you're having multiple conversations a day just on the phone or via text? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So, no.

Yes, it would be easy to do that. And that's part of the structure of surrogate partner therapy is that we don't. Because yeah, I could get caught up with my clients and have communication with them every day and get in that NRE type energy, the new relationship energy kinds of things. And while it is a true and real relationship, we try to structure it in such a way that there are some boundaries, and the boundary is that I do not talk to my clients in between sessions other than for clarification purposes. Like, Hey, am I seeing you this week? Or is something going on, or, I've gotta cancel because I just had a appendicitis.

I can't work logistics. You know, so those kinda things. But no, I'm not reaching out to them. Now, I will reach out to them and say, Hey, happy birthday, if I know it's their birthday or something like that, or, Merry Christmas. Uh, but I don't say, oh, how are you doing today? I just, I was missing your voice and wanted to hear it. And it was just thinking about you. 

I don't do those kinds of things and I'd let my clients know that and tell them that is part of a normal relationship, whatever normal might actually mean. But in this structure I'm not supposed to do that.

 

[00:14:29] Dan's Married by the way...

 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So, can I ask you a personal question, Dan?

Are you in a committed relationship, monogamous or non monogamous or poly, personally your own real, full relationship? Are you able to have a partner when doing this kind of work? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah, I'm not like in a relationship. I am in a relationship. I have a lifetime partner.

I'm married. I have a wife. We both do sex education kind of work. She's a former sex therapist that let her license go because talk therapy. There's actually a study that I read and came across a number of years ago that said that talk therapy is only 20% effective, whereas somatic therapy is 80% effective. And it really is.

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Oh, that's so true. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: And she let her license go because she got tired of being the person that was really there to help them break up. There'd be one whose foot is out the door already and the other one who's like, hanging on, hanging on. And they would come in so that she could say, you know, you two just need to get divorced because it's just not working.

So she let that license go to do that, but we've both done the surrogate partner work. She's no longer doing it. Cause she took time out to write her own book called The Pleasure Prescription.

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. Shout out to Elizabeth. I love you too 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: girl! The Pleasure Prescription. Her & her business partner wrote this book to help women who are dealing with pelvic floor pain or, painful intercourse, that kind of stuff.

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. Great. That's a lot of work I do too. Yeah. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: And for me, yes, I identify as polyamorous. And of course when you say that, it's like, well, what does that mean? Cause there's so many different flavors of it. We are in a monopoly relationship. Elizabeth is definitely monogamous. I am polyamorous and this works really well for me because I can get into these relationships.

I take nothing away from Elizabeth by being in these relationships other than time. Well, this is time that I'm spending with clients that I would spend with clients anyway. And this is the other reason why we don't do the conversations outside of session work is because it could become very cumbersome to have, three surrogate clients at the same time, and my wife, and other clients and that kind of stuff.

It's just, it'd be too time consuming. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. This is like, talk about Sex Reimagined. Are y'all listening to this and having your minds expanded and blown wide open by Mr. Dan? This is amazing. I mean I didn't even know this was really a thing.

 

[00:17:06] Becoming Certified 

 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: where do you do the training for this and how long?

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So, Surrogate Partner Therapy has been around since Masters & Johnson. In fact, they're the ones that invented it. Okay. If you watch the series, Masters of Sex, they actually alluded to it a little bit. Unfortunately again, Hollywood twisted it to their desires but they kind of held it on the down low because a lot of people would look at it and go, are you kidding? You're not... you can't have...

And predominantly they worked with men that were having sexual dysfunctions. So they would bring in a woman that would help them. And Vena Blanchard, who is the president of IPSA, the International Professional Surrogates Association, she was actually trained by Masters & Johnson's.

So it's been going on for 50 years at this point in time. So that's a great place to get trained. It's ipsa.us. There's a number of them surrogate partner therapy.com, I think. But Ipsa US is the one that I always use because it's super easy to say. The training is there's a little bit of training that you do ahead of time, reading and things like that.

There is a two week intensive that you do with Vena and potentially other trainers where you're going through the entire process and then you have a mentorship program that goes on after that and so for me it took, I think it was two years before I was certified. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So you kind of go at your own pace then? 

And it depends. Being a cisgender, heterosexual male, it is much more difficult for females to come work with me. 

Because our culture says that women shouldn't be having sex or be aroused or turned on and seeking pleasure anyway. They should just shut it down, keep their legs closed. That's what religion has taught them.

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: That's what their parents have taught them since they were little girls and so oftentimes they shut it down. And I'm always so honored when a woman does choose to come work with me because she has thrown that smothering mantle off and decided to move forward with her pleasure, because this is something that's really important for humanity.

Men on the other hand, because you're not a real man in our culture if you're not having sex. So men who are having difficulties with this they're absolutely willing to pay for it and seek it out and do it. If they've heard about it, if they learn about it, then they're absolutely willing to work towards it.

They're currently I didn't see the numbers, but I saw the list of surrogates that are out there. There's like three or four heterosexual men that are surrogates right now, and probably 40 women. And then probably another 10 gay or bisexual men that do this work. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Okay. Interesting. So, so you're one of three then you're really an anomaly. 

Leah | SxR Host: So I imagine people like from outta state, right, if there's only less than you can count on your hand surrogates niching in your particular space, do you have a lot of people that fly in to do this work with you? Do you fly out of state to work with them?

What does that look like? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: It’s both. I have flown to California a number of times to do this work. Last year I was probably in California for two or three months. This year I was in Arizona for a couple weeks working with a client. My preference is that they come to me because it's very disruptive uh, to what it is that I'm doing in the world, and, so that, that's obviously my preference. But yeah, it's all over the place. And we're constantly doing, I say we, IPSA is constantly doing new teachings. And so while I'm probably one of three certified surrogate partners, there are other men who are coming through who are not certified that, you know, they're working very closely with their mentor, so they will work with clients as well.

Leah | SxR Host: And so are you also a mentor? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: I haven't as of yet. I haven't put my name in to be a mentor. I just have so many other things going on that if somebody needed me to, I would. But I try to pass it on to people that have even more experience than I do. 

Leah | SxR Host: How lucrative is this kind of stuff? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Not very. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: That's a good question.

Leah | SxR Host: Not very. Yeah, like what can you charge as compared to some of your other sex therapy modalities? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So I charge $200 an hour, or whatever the therapist charges. So if the therapist charges $300 an hour, then I get a charge $300 an hour. In the intensive model it's $175 per hour. 

Before last year I hadn't had a client in several years. Last year I had kind of a breakthrough year for me and I think I had four clients. This year I've had three clients at this point. So women can make a living doing this. 

For me it's, it's not as lucrative. I don't make a living doing this work. I actually just love this work. I think it's so, so valuable that I'm willing to do it. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: That's amazing. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: I charge much less for doing surrogate work than I do my other work. My other table type work. and I do a lot more as a surrogate than I would in my other work.

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. Just to give our audience some perspective. A lot of Tantra Educators who have a private practice that are working with people individually, the typical range would be anywhere from like $275, $350 all the way up to $700 an hour. And that usually is dependent on if you're in an urban area or not, and different cities and states.

So I know like the sex industry in general and sex workers in general are working there's a lot of legal constraints. So from a legality standpoint where does this type of therapy Fall under? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: That's such a great question. 

Leah | SxR Host: Is it legal in most states? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So that's the number two question that everybody always asks.

Or number one or two, it flips back and forth between do you fall in love with your clients or, what's the legality issues. And the truth of the matter, and I'm not an attorney, so don't take this as legal advice anybody that's out there, there are no laws against it. Other than apparently Texas, which I'm not sure actually that's true in Texas.

And part of the reason why we do call ourselves surrogate partner therapist is because we're modeling a relationship, a partnership. It's not about intercourse, it's not about sex, not about touching genitals for pleasure or anything like that. It's about modeling a relationship so that these women in my case can understand what that's like.

It's like trying to teach somebody how to sail from the shore. It's like, okay, this is what you do, or how to swim. That's another one I like to use. It's like, okay, here's how you do this kind of stroke. Now I'm going to throw you in the deep end of the pool and I'm going to walk away and hopefully you don't drown.

 

[00:24:36] Miracle Stories

 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: These women that are coming to us are terrified of men. In this particular case, I had one woman who she could not look me in the eyes. So the first time worked together, I'd do an intake type call like we would do in the other work as well. And she literally would look at me and then look away and then look at me and look away and just like do these drive-by peerings at me.

And she could not get into any kind of relationship with a guy like that because they don't understand, they're not willing to go slow necessarily. I mean a lot of them on men out there are very generous and would be willing to try to help support them if they understood what was going on. But they don't have the kind of training that I have to be able to be there to support them through whatever it is that's going on.

And it's funny because that client, eventually later on, she got to the point where she was so comfortable with me that she would come in bouncing into the room. And she was actually a very pretty woman. And that was the other thing that surprised me is I thought, okay, well these aren't going to be stereotypically beautiful women.

No, I've had everything. A lot of them are women who are just absolutely gorgeous. And part of their problem has been because they were so beautiful these men would not see them as a person, but see them as a conquest. And they just were like, no, no, no, no, no. Freeze up. But this woman, she bounced into my studio and she said, okay, well what are we going to do today?

I said, well, I think we're going to do a nice sensual massage. Nude massage. She goes, okay, ripped her clothes off and jumped in the bed. That's how comfortable she got. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: I'm so curious, Dan, like what, what's your success rate? So with this woman in particular, like after you sort of had your consciousness uncoupling, which is another question, like at what point, how do you know, how do you know it's time for that part of the journey?

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: And then, I'm curious like what happened for her? What happens for a lot of your clients? Do they go on then to find a partner? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So I don't know the answer to that necessarily. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Cause you don't stay in contact? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah. So, so part of our ethics is that I will never reach back out to my former clients unless they reach out to me.

And I've had several that have reached back out to me and they have been successful. One in fact, she is now a sex educator getting her ASEC Certification as a sex educator. And the reason that I,know this is because I was at an ASEC conference and I ran into her. And I'm like, Oh, hey, how you doing? What's going on? What are you doing here? 

And she said, oh, well, the work that we had done together, she had been sexually assaulted by her stepsister when she was 10 and her stepsister was 18. And they grew up in, again, a very religious family. And she said, Oh my God, this is horrible. I shouldn't have done this. And what's wrong with me? I'm a bad person. And so she shut down sexually. 

And long story short she came to me, worked with me. She was one of my shortest clients. I worked with her for about six months. And then because of her going through this trauma and dealing with it and working through it with me. She has decided that she wants to be an educator to go out to women and say, look, just because this happened to you does not make it your fault. You do have a valuable life that you can move forward with, and you need to. And I'll be here to support you. 

So that's one of my the biggest success stories that I'm aware of. Others, I have no idea if they've gone and gotten married. I would love to know. So if any of you're out there seeing this, please let me know. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. Shoot him an email. Show him your wedding ring. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: But yeah, the other interesting thing is a number of the women that I've worked with they've decided that they don't want to be in a monogamous relationship.

They actually are exploring polyamory. Even this woman who's doing the training. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Interesting. Yeah. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Especially the ones who are older. It's like I've wasted a lot of time by myself. I don't want to be stuck with one guy, I want to see and experience multiple people more quickly in a very conscious way.

And so I talk with them and teach them all about that and how it looks and works. And how to be empowered about asking for what they want. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah, that makes sense. Totally. Like making up for lost time and wanting to experience life and not just have one, or two sexual experiences. But to feel like, yeah, I totally get that. Surprising, you know?

But I think that's really great.

 

[00:29:09] What's left to Learn & Concious Uncoupling

 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: And then to my other question at what point on the journey do you know that it's time to go into the conscious uncoupling phase? 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. Who initiates that whole process? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So it can be any of us. Like I said earlier, we're always asking the question, what's left to learn?

So we walk through all the steps of relationship, love making, kissing, everything that's involved with that. 

Leah | SxR Host: So you're teaching them how to make out and stuff? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah. Yeah. All of it. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. And flirt teaching em how to flirt. 

Leah | SxR Host: What about like oral sex? What about like oral sex? Oral and stuff? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Gotta learn all these things. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: How to have conversations like STI conversations with a potential partner. How to have conversations about, well, if we have sex, what does that mean? Does that mean now I'm your girlfriend? What are your desires in that relationship as compared to theirs?

And so they are well armed with that kind of information moving forward. And so the question is always what's left to learn? And I've had clients that we never got to the intercourse phase. Just the fact that they were with a man and comfortable with him, that's like, Okay I can, I think I can do this.

And that's great. I would love for their first experience to be with somebody that they're madly in love with and want to create a long-term relationship with. If they fall in love with me and have that's great too. I super appreciate that. And that's not why I'm here is to get that. I'm there to support them.

And in some cases it's really kind of a, cause I had one that kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back. It's like, okay, well I think it's time to move on now. I think we've pretty much covered everything. 

And then she came back a week later and said, no, we haven't. I realized that when we are together, that I was saying things for you because I wanted to please you.

I was like, wow, that's an awesome understanding and Insight for yourself. Yeah. So, that was great. And so we continued on for another month or so. But you know, any one of us can say at any time, okay I think that enough is enough. It's time for you to move on. The therapist stays with them.

So when the work is done with me, then the therapist stays with the client says, okay, now how do we get you out into the dating realm? What do you need to do? Are you going to get onto online dating and can we help you put a online profile together? 

Or you get into relationship and this relationship's not going to be like Dan because this person's not going to have the kind of knowledge and education that Dan has. 

He's going to have some desires and wants that are going to supersede something like what I would do you know, it's all for my clients. So how do they deal with those kinds of things and issues that come up around that? And then how do they deal with a breakup that isn't as conscious as the two of us would do?

Leah | SxR Host: Okay. Sure. That makes sense. So like how long does the conscious uncoupling process take? Is it like one conversation or is it multiple sessions? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah it's really, probably, I'd say more like two sessions. We would realize that this is probably going to be our last intimate session. And so we would have kind of a goodbye kiss type thing. And then she would come back for the next session which would be totally more of the therapy style. Where we're sitting on the couch talking about it. And typically what I do in that is say you remember when you walked in and you couldn't even look me in the eyes and you were so nervous that you were vibrating on the couch. And now look at you, you're confident, you're smiling, you're radiant you're ready to go out and conquer the world and meet people and get into relationship and how amazing is that? And you know, then we go. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So you're really curating them to their own confidence through this process.

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Absolutely. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So that they can step into the world with confidence, but also like curiosity. Like, what can I create now? Like, wow, I just did that. I went through that process. I mean, it just seems like such a hero's journey. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah, right. Like, I feel like I know what I'm doing and I'm not in the dark. And I can imagine just how scary that is when you feel inexperienced and how like inadequacy can be so isolating.

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Well, a perfect example is they go to some social function and normally where they would be shy in any male attention that would come at them, they would be courteous but distant. And they would kind of be shielding them off. Now it's like, oh wait. I can open myself up to that. And I can be receptive to their moving towards me and then where's that going to go for me?

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: And so, that's all things that they are able to do after they've left from me. 

Leah | SxR Host: Now you mentioned that you don't go on dates. Did I hear that correctly, or do you do kind of go out to dinner so they can see what that's like? Depending on their experience? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: No, we typically don't go out to dinner with them or the movies or anything like that.

In special circumstances that has been known to happen, not with me, but I know with other surrogates that they have done that. Again, it's trying to keep the boundaries such that it's not like, you know, if I'm out in public with this woman and a friend of mine comes by and sees me with this person and knows that I'm married to Elizabeth then there may be issues.

Or if I'm going to their place and they see me with them then I can be like, wait what's going on here? Oh, you're dating. And then I'm going to be in the picture for a short period of time. And it's like, well, what happened to Dan? 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. Oh, interesting. That makes sense. Keep it so that the outer community doesn't have to get involved with the inner workings. Because it's really such a personal transformation that you're supporting them through. I'm curious, again, another personal question. Has Elizabeth ever had any hooks or reactions, any envys or jealousies or anything with any of your surrogates?

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Amazing. I love this woman. We gotta have her on the show. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah, we'll definitely have her on. I've already been in contact with a her. I want you on the podcast. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: She recognizes this work for what it is and the value of the work we are doing.

 

[00:35:46] Bedpost Confessions

 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: In fact, there used to be something in Boulder called Bedpost Confessions and I knew the women who ran it and I suggested to them one time that because they kept coming to me saying, Hey, we'd love for you to get on and do something. I told my client at ASEC said, wow, that'd be really fun if we did this Bedpost Confessions. And we didn't tell people that we had worked with each other, but we told both of our stories and see if they could figure it out and so I presented that to the women running the Bedpost Confessions and they said, oh, that's amazing. So we're going to do one that's on sex work, so they had an escort that was there, they had a pro-dom that was there, they had my client and they had me and my client went second. And thing to know about my client is she is a university professor in English and literature. And so her writing is very elegant and very good and she's funny as hell and she got up there and she started talking about her trauma and what had happened.

And I wish we had it recorded, but we weren't supposed to. And she talked about the work that we had done together. She said, yeah, you know I needed something to break out of this. I'm now in my fifties and I've never been in a relationship with a man. I like men and I've seen couples in a relationships and I kind of am envious of that. I want that. 

And she talked about some of the silly things that we did. Like one time I walked in with stripper underwear. I had stripper underwear on underneath my pants. So I took my pants off. I had this little thing with a cobra and little tail and it was in fun. And of course she made it sound like I did it cause I thought it was hot. But. Whatever. 

Yeah. But then I got up to talk. And it's like, well, is the work that I do sex work? So I'll let you guys decide. I work with women, I do this for them. 

I've had women who have been empowered to be, you know, successful women in the world around relationship and a number of my clients are successful business-wise already anyway. 

And then I started talking about surrogate partner therapy and about my perspective of working with clients and even shared some of the stories that I had with this client. And then finally towards the end I said, hopefully one of these days you'll see how amazing these women are. And by meeting them you'll see that they're just really amazing women and can be super successful.

And of course tears are everywhere. I couldn't keep talking anymore. And my client came up and hugged and at that point in time, if people couldn't figure it out, they did. And so we got standing ovations. Amazing. Yeah. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: This was your client? Yeah. Oh. Oh, wow. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: That's amazing. It still gets me to this day.

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. What a cool job. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: It's the best.

 

[00:38:32] How does someone find a therapist or surrogate to begin this process?

 

Leah | SxR Host: So how would a therapist get in contact with you or another surrogate partner therapist if they had a client that could really use this type of support? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So the best way is for them to go to the IPSA website and there are referrals. There's a referral network there, there is a therapist who's on staff that will talk with the client or the therapist and have an interview with them and say, okay, this is what you're looking for. I've got a great surrogate in your area that could do that. Or it might be an intensive model, whatever it might be. But they would talk to them about how it would look and what it would look like, & all that stuff. So that's really the best way. So women who contact me through my website, PleasureEngineer.com, when I'm interviewing them about what kind of work they want to do, I'll find out and I'll get a sense, wait, this sounds like a surrogate model would be perfect. And if that's the case, then what I will do is refer them to a therapist that I've worked with in the past. Because the therapist needs to work with them and make sure that they're actually ready for this work.

They don't just come in off the street and we say, okay, let's go to town here. It's like, no, they've gotta work with a therapist. Therapists needs to understand who they are, what they are, what kind of traumas they have in their past. We don't work with bipolar or borderline personality disorder people because that's just dangerous for everybody.

And that therapist should evaluate and assess them for that. And then when that therapist thinks that this person is ready then they would contact me or they would contact IPSA. And IPSA would say, would interview them and say, okay, yeah, I think that your client is ready for a surrogate.

Here is a surrogate that you can work with. And then it would go from there. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. So it's very vetted, which is important. You know, really making sure that they're ready for this process. Such a deep journey. And like for you too. Like you're really putting so much into it, opening your heart, and bringing all of your expertise to this person so that they can become more in the world.

 

[00:40:51] Corporate Engineer to Pleasure Engineer

 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: So earlier in our conversation, this super fascinating conversation, you said something about your work in the world, like as if this isn't just your work in the world, like you've got other stuff that you're putting out into the world. Can you tell us more about that? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah. So I'm a former software engineer and I have an MBA and...

Leah | SxR Host: That's when I met him. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Really? 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. We've known each other for well over a decade. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Oh we're going on like 18 years. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. I was at your first Beginner's Weekend. Yep. I think it was one of my first beginner weekends teaching. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Oh, no, Caroline had taught my first one.

Leah | SxR Host: Oh, was Caroline there? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah. You were at the second one. You were at the intermediate weekend. 

Leah | SxR Host: I might have been the event coordinator maybe for the first one. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: That may be true. 

Leah | SxR Host: Or were you at the intermediate anyways, we can talk about that offline. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah, so I was in the corporate world being an engineer. I love learning, I love expanding what's going on. 

so I had done this training. I had never had conversations like this before. It's like, wait a minute, we can talk about sex without how quickly can I get you in bed? Andfuck your brains out and all that kinda stuff. That was the mentality that I had which is common in the United States.

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah it's the norm. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: And it was amazing that I could have conversations about, well, what's pleasurable for you and how do we slow this down? And how can I have multiple orgasms and how can I even just enjoy the journey and not have to ejaculate? I had to ejaculate every time I had sex before.

And while I was still in the corporate world, I was learning more and more and more. So I've done Quodoushka which is a Native American tradition of spiritual shamonic sexuality. I've done Human Awareness Institute. I've done some stuff with Deborah Sundahl, whose the queen of female Ejaculation. I've done, God, I don't even, I can't even remember all things I've done.

What was that? The blueprints I've done Erotic Blueprints. That was more recent thing. Erotic Blueprints. I've done Somatic Sex Education, Sexological Body Work all the training, 

All the Tantra. 

I've done some university courses and I looked at getting a certification or Degree from some kind of a university.

And the problem that I have with universities is that they're all about the dysfunction of sex. They're all about theory and dysfunction and not about pleasure. There's nothing that's really pleasure based in this world. In fact, grants that are out there for studies do not fund things that are for pleasure only for the dysfunction plan.

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. It's like all illness dysfunction forward. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: And about 10 years into it, I just remember driving into work and seeing the building off in the distance and thinking, damn, I've got five more days of having to do this drive.

And even on Friday it's like, oh, I've got one more day. And then I was getting to the point where even Sundays I didn't like because now I'm going to be at work tomorrow. And I finally decided that's it, I'm out of here. So I started a conference called Beyond the Bedroom, which was a sex education conference for consumers.

And I would bring in experts to talk about everything under the sun from Tantra, how to talk to your kids about sex, BDSM, swinging, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And my philosophy is that education is power. If you understand and know what it is that you want, you can make informed decisions about going into anything.

So swinging is a perfect example. I'm not a swinging expert, so I brought some experts in that will talk about it. And these people could go in a very safe place where they could look at it and say, well, is this something that I want or we as a couple want to do? And now at the end of it, if they decided yes, well now they've got somebody who they already now know in the swinging community that can help hold their hand as they walk into, you know, a club, for example, or something like that.

Then unfortunately in 2013 we had huge floods in Colorado, and half my presenters were being evacuated from their homes by helicopter and just, we had to cancel the event. And that's when I decided that I remember that I just can't do this and put all my eggs in this one basket. So I started expanding into other things.

So I do private coaching work. I expanded and did the Erotic Blueprints, which you may have seen on the Goop series. Yeah, Netflix. Netflix, Goop, Sex, Love, and Goop, and. And then there's another woman, Caitlin V, who's on Discovery Plus Good Sex and she's a blueprint coach as well.

And so it's just amazing work that's out there. And that's the stuff that I do as well, coaching predominantly women. But I'm expanding into men because all the women that I've worked with say, can you teach my partner? How to be better. Right? And so that's the work that I'm starting to expand into now with the Beyond The Bedroom work.

Leah | SxR Host: I know you guys did a lot of video interviews.

Is there still a place to watch some of that content or absorb some of that 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: content that's out there? Yeah, so BedEvents.com has, I believe all my videos. The website is kind of stagnant because I've been moving more in this other direction. Right now my private work is through PleasureEngineer.com, but my online training and I have a sex toy store with all my favorite sex toys that I use for clients to go... 

Leah | SxR Host: oh, we want to be... yeah, tell us about that? 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Is that on your website? Pleasure Engineering. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Pleasure Engineering is a new website and there will be a link to it. Okay, I'm an engineer, I love this work and I've used all these different tools and instruments and while sex is more of an art than an engineering aspect, you still have a bunch of different tools that you can apply to different situations.

And so that's my sex toy box behind me. So I have tons and tons of sex toys that I use. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: A very big box. 

Leah | SxR Host: It looks like that's like a that's a like a handyman toolbox. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah. You oftentimes see these in men's garages where they've got all their tools. This has all my tools. I talked to a cousin-in-law and he's a big mechanic and loves all this type of work.

I said, Hey, what's a really good toolbox? He goes, oh yeah, go to Home Depot. And they've got the Husky one, that's really good. It's like, okay. And so that's what I got and it was funny because he was over and he came down and he saw it and he said, well, how come that's not in the garage? Like oh, it doesn't matter.

And he started opening up the drawers and says, you know, dildos and vibrators and this and that. He quickly closed the doors and walked on. But his wife said, oh, really? And she came over started opening them up and looking through them all. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: She's, oh, this looks fun. 

Leah | SxR Host: That was another question I had is, from engineer to sexuality expert I mean, how much does your family know, right?

I think you've got kids and like, what do you say, how do you approach this with family members who, may find this intimidating? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: So that's a really great question. On my side of the family, I don't hold anything back. I don't throw it in their face either. My mom has seen stuff on Facebook, which I rarely get on anymore.

And she's seen some of the work that I do and she's proud of me and she says, I really respect and honor what you're doing for women. My dad doesn't really talk about it that much, so, you know, I don't force it down a throat or anything like that. My kids, you know, I talked to them about sex, especially when I was raising them and they're getting coming of age.

I definitely wanted them to be better when it came to interacting with people. Um, so I don't hide it from them at all. Elizabeth's side of the family is a little bit different. They come from a family where, to be seen, and known that way. There's a lot of shame around it in the Midwest where she's from.

But her sister had me come out and do a presentation at her boss's house, and we had oh, 10 women there and I was talking about all the work that I do. So one of her sisters absolutely knows everything that I do. I don't throw it in their faces either. I try not to. Every once in a while I screw up because I get so caught up and excited about talking about it, that I'll let things slip that Elizabeth would prefer that I didn't say.

Leah | SxR Host: But yeah. Okay. Cool. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: That sounds, it's always so interesting to see how the family responds to those of us in this work. You just, you never know. It can be so surprising to be like, who, who's open to it and interested in it versus who's like, I'm not going to talk about that. 

Leah | SxR Host: I notice it's a big question as people go through the Source Tantra Certification Process, when they're really new, what do you tell people that you do?

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: And I loved one of your answers, Leah. One time you said, I just tell, told my grandma that I just help people love each other more. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. Like 10 maybe it was like 15 years into my career. She's like, so honey, what do you do? And and so I, after making some blunders, and what I mean by blunders is saying more than what someone can hear.

And it feels painful to me when I feel like they are now uncomfortable. It hits something inside of my heart that makes me kind of go, ooh, like to close. And so I learned early on that, to love myself and to love them was to really be able to notice how much they could hear. And if I know them well, then I can really respect that. There's an attunement that you can kind of drop into and go, okay, this is, this would be too much, and this is just enough. Yeah. And so, and full of pet answers. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. And that goes beyond family members. It does. It's like for people in general, especially as you're stepping more and more into your sexual power, sexual sovereignty Yeah. Or what have you. 

Leah | SxR Host: You'll be sitting next to someone on an airplane, right? And a common question is so what do you do?

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: I love those questions. 

Leah | SxR Host: And right? Have you guys had like really interesting conversations on planes. Yeah. And then there's like elevator rides where you really only have 30 seconds and someone will ask you that question and so like, you got your one liner. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Oh, I've got a really fun story about that. I do ski patrol work as a volunteer. And right after I had started doing this work in the early days, I was talking to some woman at the bar on patrol and just like Diary of the mouth, just vomiting all this stuff all over her. And finally after about 20 minutes of all this conversation, I could just see her jaw was on the floor. And I said, oh, I probably told you a little bit too much, haven't I? And she's kinda like Uhhuh Uhhuh. Two weeks later she came up to me and said, when you were saying all that stuff, one thing you said stuck in my mind and I wanted to ask you more about that. So knowing that I wasn't coming from it, on this fraternity boy attitude or sophomoric you know, cause I'm just talking about it passionately about things that are available. They start to realize that, oh, you know, he's not this, you know... 

Leah | SxR Host: He's not trying to pick me up by being impressive. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: He's not a creepy guy trying to get on my pants and do anything. He's just talking about facts and information and I want to know more about what he said around this. And so that's happened in number five. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: And I mean, I want to know more, Dan, I think we need to have Dan on again. Maybe we could have Dan talk about becoming a multi-orgasmic man sometime in the future. That would be fun. We have had so much fun just listening to and expanding our minds, re-imagining what's possible.

 

[00:52:57] Dan's Free Gift

 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: And Dan, you do have a Gift for our audience, Five Tips For Pleasuring a Woman. What a valuable gift. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Yeah, so. You know, Cosmo and all those kinds of magazines always come out with these greatest tips kind of thing. And recently somebody asked me, he's like, okay, what are your tips? And thought, thought back long and hard on it in the work that I've done and what women seem to have appreciated, and so I put together a list of five that I think are hugely valuable, that are going to be valuable to a relationship and to women in particular. And like one of them, for example, is education. The fact that if there's a guy here listening to this conversation right now and it's spurred them on to being better, then that is hugely valuable. Going and doing a Tantra weekend with Source Tantra or anywhere else is hugely valuable. The more information that you have, which is was the reason for Beyond the Bedroom, is now. You have knowledge that makes you better at meeting the person that you're with and understanding it? Most of us, I came into this world before porn was a big thing, at least on the internet. Cause I came of age before the internet happened. But there are still videos that were out there and where did I learn how to have sex?

Through experimentation with my girlfriends, because I had no freaking clue what I was doing. But porn was the next one, which I think porn was great as a entertainment tool but not a sex education. And most of us have used it as sex education and I think that's wrong. So, learning from some other sources that are credible sources.

Quoduoshka, Tantra ,Sexological Body Work, Somatic Sex Education, all those kinds of things I think are just hugely valuable. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: And so this gift that you're giving us is a little condensed version of all of these things that you have learned and curated and kind of birthed through you as an engineer to, I just love it.

Leah | SxR Host: I love it. Yeah. Great. 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: Well, I'm just going to get even more geeky. I've gotten all these tools to measure like how much vibration there is in vibrators and how much sound they make, because I know one big fears that women have is like, well, is it going to be too loud? My kids going to hear it. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: The kids can hear it.

Leah | SxR Host: I'm going to say, okay, here's the quietest ones. Here's the loudest ones. Yeah. I need a new quiet one. The ones I have are like way too loud and it's, Dan has a referral for I do. So Dan, your, you did mention a sex toy store. Is that something that's available now or is that something you are working on? 

Dan Powers | SxR Guest Sexpert: That's something I'm working on. I'm hoping to have it. Done within the next month. I don't care about Christmas type stuff, so, I'm not trying to get it done for Christmas sales or anything like that. This is really more of a side note for me in the work that I do. But I keep hearing about, men being afraid of sex toys women fearing and not knowing how to use them properly or anything like that. So, that's what I really want to start getting out there as part of my overall sex education plan. 

Leah | SxR Host: Okay. So we'll have the link to that free gift that you can download. I believe it's a pdf. We will have a link to the the surrogate partner therapy website, and we'll have a link to Dan's personal website as well. So Dan, once you get your sex toy store up and running, we will update the show notes so that it's available for listeners. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah, so much fun. Thank you so much for being with us today, this has been an absolute pleasure.

Leah | SxR Host: I can't wait to come visit you with Matthew and eat our way through Boulder and shop. Yes. And drink and visit and talk shop, so talk shop, go shopping, go eating all the stuff in Boulder. Hike. You'll have to teach me skiing because that's one thing that I've never done that kind of scares me. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Make sure you guys get a video of Leah teach on skis. 

Leah | SxR Host: I'll have you rescue me. All right. Give our love to Elizabeth and tell her we can't wait to have her on. Thank you. Love, love. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Thank you everyone. Ciao.

 

[00:57:30] Let's Dish on Dan

 

Announcer: Now our favorite part, the dish.

Leah | SxR Host: Okay, let's dish it out. Girlfriend. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Let's dish on Dan oh my God. Fucking loved Dan's interview. I'm going to have to say maybe my most favorite interview of all time. I mean, we've had some really, really interesting interviews. Like just so much love our interviews with, drawing a blank on her name, but, and not anatomy of women's, oh, Sheri Winston And Alison Armstrong.

I'm, I love and Alison I mean, we've got so many good ones. Elayne so many, gosh, I think maybe because what Dan was talking about, surrogate partner therapy. I had just never heard of this before. I didn't know anything about it, so it was so fascinating to me. And coming from an engineer's brain, he's an  engineer.

Like that's his training. He's got this engineer brain. And so I just, the way that he spoke to this totally out of the box, a way of healing, helping people heal their way of being in relationship intimacy you know, or not being in, in intimacy as the case may be, was just so refreshing. 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. You know, I always thought it was sex surrogacy work.

So, Dan mentioned that Helen Hunt movie, I remember watching that, and I've had some colleagues who have been sex surrogates at some point in their career, and I knew that it was connected to working with a therapist and that it was more, there was more legal. Oh, what's the word?

Ramifications? No, because it has less ramifications legally, actually. So, yeah, it's not, it was legal as compared legal so much other sex work modalities that are really helping people. So, sex surrogacy has a legitimacy because of the third party therapist that's involved. So understanding the difference between sex surrogacy and surrogate partner therapy was super helpful.

Yeah. And I think it's just something that people don't even know exist who really need to know that it exists. Okay. So that they can get the support that they need. And that so many of the people who do the work are virgins and they're clients sort of way past that, like coming of age portion where most people will have encountered sex and also we didn't really talk much about it, but I can totally see how the religious stuff comes into play in sort of stunting some of our development regarding our sexuality. And I just think the work he does is man, so needed.

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Oh my god. So needed. Like I could think of like 10 clients off the top of my head who could use a partner. Surrogate? 

Leah | SxR Host: Yeah. Yeah. To let go through the stages because man, the isolation that arises when you feel like you've missed your chance at love and sexuality.

I've worked with a handful of middle-aged virgins men and have had the privilege to be, to hold space for that embarrassment, for that fear of missing out, for, the pain that arises, that embarrassment, and to be able to just sort of normalize and what these, partner surrogates are doing is teaching such incredible skillsets so they have confidence and can go out and discover sexual love. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: It's a very, it's like the angel I feel like. Dan's an angel and people who do this work are angels because, I mean, they really are opening their hearts. They truly are getting into a relationship with their clients, like an intimate relationship with their clients to the point of intercourse.

Some of the time, a lot of the time. and meanwhile, Dan's married to an amazing woman, So we got to really like, wow, just look into the possibilities. I mean, talk about sex reimagined. This, I think that's what it was about this episode in particular, like my mind was completely opened to possibilities that I had no concept of before this episode.

So that to me is inspiring. You know, and Dan really just shows up with. I don't know, just like, yep, just that's the way it is and it's just, there's like a simpleness and a straightforwardness to his delivery. It's so, digestible. It makes sense. It's not out there. It's easy to follow. 

Leah | SxR Host: He's very matter of fact, he's got that engineer part of how he processes information and it was so sweet actually to hear him

have a moment, like in one of the stories where he felt tender, like and emotional, like remembering one of his clients and being on stage and I was like, oh, Dan there's those like softer feelings because he could be so like, matter of fact, and it's part of his genius zone, right? It's like really great because he's able to articulate really well something that really can be very complex.

And and I was just in a seminar with Dan this past weekend and so, seeing sort of how people can get really emotional, but Dan's always pretty stoic and he's, it's not that he's not emotional, but I just really kind of crumbled in a yummy way when he was speaking about something that was meaningful to him.

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: you gotta listen to the episode to really understand what this type of therapy truly is and what it brings to people. 

Leah | SxR Host: And well, what I really appreciate is the distinctions, right? Because it could potentially be very messy. Yes. And I think it's so intelligent that there is a therapist that's helping the client process what could potentially be their own emotional. Like bonding instincts that, eventually could lead to a really kind of something devastating because someone's really not going to continue with you. So the fact that even the breakup is super conscientious, I love that there are boundaries regarding, okay, we're not going to, like, we're not going to play all out relationship because I'm, we're still in a therapeutic container. Yeah. I have another life. I may have other clients, so we're not going to do the full out relationship. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. Like, I'm not going to be texting you Yeah and sexting you and getting, giving you little dopamine hits like that. 

Leah | SxR Host: That's not right. We're not going to go on like package ongoing dating, where we're going to go to movies together and stuff like that, but I could see he did say there are cases where that specifically may be valuable. Because, to give, to boost the confidence of someone who's never been on a date. Let's go through the process and the steps of what a date might look like so that you feel like you've had the experience so you feel less inadequate.

Right. But that sort of doing that regular dating stuff, whether that's texting, phone, calling, going out and doing things out in the world is inappropriate in this context. And the other thing I hadn't thought of was the impact that it has on community. Because it could really confuse people who see totally in the world, who may not know all these ins and outs of your professional life.

Yeah. Or could confuse the person who is the client running into people that they know that may really confuse well, what are they doing? Oh, they're. You know, I just thought that was super smart. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Well, and I imagine there already is going to be some level of confusion for the client because they have never had a relationship before, potentially that might be, or that they're healing from all the terrible relationships that they've had before through somebody who is educated and knows how to guide them into what it looks like to be in a healthy relationship.

It's like that's almost to be expected, that confusion that the client's going to have to go through and Dan is this therapist, Surrogate therapist. 

Leah | SxR Host: He's handsome. He has to, he sort has like this quintessential, he's super tall. Yeah, he's in great shape. He's a handsome guy. So you could see how someone could easily want to be, I want to be Dan's number one.

You know, like how do I get in there? And that's really common in a lot of, Intimate experiences. So I just, yeah, I think it's got a good container, and I could imagine like, oh, I would want to, like, if I had a really positive experience with a client like that, I would want to stay friends and like having to go, no, that's a limit. We're not going to cross either. Yeah. Because that could be confusing. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. At the end of, so this whole process, it's like it could take anywhere from two weeks, like an intensive to I think up to like a year. He worked with someone once for three years. 

Leah | SxR Host: Three years. Okay. So really at least typically about a year.

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. So it's like, it's however long it takes for the client to get to a point where they're like, okay, I'm ready to do this relationship thing in a healthy way. 

Leah | SxR Host: Well, I think one of the things he said is, here's the question, what else is there to learn? And then once you reach that place of going, this is all I have to teach.

Yeah. Then that's the end. And prolonging it actually doesn't, isn't inservice that point, right? Yeah. Because now they need to go stretch their wings and fly. And you know, both Willow and I can't remember if we've talked [01:07:00] about this yet in, in any of our little portions but we both sort of had a moment of going, could I do this work?

Like what would it look like if I did this work? And I was trying to think of like, what would my limits be because teaching someone how to give or receive oral sex where I'm the one that's a part of the providing or the receiving would be an edge for me, and I could also had a moment of going.

And wouldn't it have been amazing to have someone teach you how to give a great blow job? And all like it would've been there through their lens of their own body. And I know that they practice really safe sex and all of those parameters are built into the system because again, yeah.

He's in a committed relationship. And he has a responsibility to also keep his wife safe. So when you're all that STI information is like included in how to do this well, but those were two things that really came up for me. I was like, okay, how far could I go in providing this kind of support?

And do you have to provide everything as a therapist in this role? I don't remember getting a clear answer about that, but that's a leftover question for me. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Well, for him it was, he was all in. So if somebody was coming ,and he said too, like, you know, the doorway for a lot of people to get into this kind of therapy is that they want to learn how to have sex, right?

Yeah. They want to learn about their own sexuality and how someone teach them and how someone teach them how to be in relationship and intimacy and all of that. And so, for him personally, he's committed. He's is, that's one of the pieces that somebody is really needing and wanting from him.

Then he's committed to giving that. However, he also said that sometimes they get in and all this other inner, he may not go all that way. Deep work happens. Yeah. And they might not need it in the end. Yeah. what was so fascinating was that there's only three men I know doing this work. And like many more women doing this work, which does make sense. Right? 

Leah | SxR Host: Makes sense. Yeah. Right, because there's maybe not, there's probably a lot of women who don't, know that this is available for them to, this type of therapy is available for them. And then of course, all of our cultural conditioning around women and sex and what's okay and what's not okay. You could totally see how that would stop the trajectory of expansion.

But yeah, I mean, it makes me want to go. I hope people listen to this episode and who need it. Go. Please go, go, go to the episode page for this and show notes. Do your research. Whether that's because you want to be the kind of compassionate, therapeutic provider that is able to support people through this process or whether you need this process.

And if you're a therapist who is inspired to actually help both the surrogate and the client come together and do this work. I mean, all three roles. So valuable, so cool. Amazing. Really, and a lot of respect for this program. 

Dr. Willow | SxR Host: Yeah. So let us know what you think. Let us shoot us a DM or send us an email.

Send, put a comment actually in the comments section and give us a little, like, because we want to hear from you and we really want this to get out to a wider audience because talk about rewiring what's possible in intimacy. This is a definitely a big episode for that. 

Leah | SxR Host: We hang out on Instagram, but the biggest thing you could do for us if you're enjoying the podcast, is to go to the streaming service that you most use, and please subscribe and not just like give us a thumbs up, but share a comment.

Let us, know what you like about the podcast or what you like about the episode. It just, you can't imagine how much it helps spread this podcast into the algorithm that goes worldwide. So please, please love, love, love. We love you so much on the flipside. See soon. 

Announcer: Thanks for tuning in. If the hosts seem to know what they were talking about, that's because they do.

Announcer: Leah Piper is a Tantric sex master coach and a positive psychology facilitator. Dr. Willow Brown is both a Chinese and functional medicine doctor and a Taoist sexology teacher. Don't forget your comments, likes, subscribes, and suggestions matter. Let's realize this new world together.